Do you want to know why you should buy Mists of Pandaria? Look at that video. Look at it. Watch it. That is why you need to buy Mists of Pandaria. If you do not get a rush of glee at that video, I feel sorry for you. I can flip my own table in Mists of Pandaria. I don’t even care about Garrosh anymore. I just want to flip my table all day.

If table flipping isn’t your thing, don’t worry. There was plenty of other juicy news coming out of WoW this past week, and we have the usual roundup ready and waiting for you. Downtime this week starts at 5 a.m. PDT and lasts around six hours, so you should have time to get caught up.

Hot news and features

• Could this be the new Mists of Pandaria box art?
• Gold sink mounts will now be account-wide in Mists.
• Want to play a brewmaster monk? We have a guide for you.
• Bubble-Hearthing is back, in pog form — and by pog form, I mean glyph form.
• The Pet Journal offer a lot of fun flavor text in Mists of Pandaria.
• Check out our galleries of Valley of the Four Winds and Karasang Wilds, two of the new Pandaria zones, as well as The Veiled Stair, home of the Black Market Auction House.
• Community Manager Zarhym recently offered more clarification on the purpose and function of the Black Market Auction House.

• Raid testing has begun over on the Mists of Pandaria beta.
• Blizzard’s looking for your Mists beta class feedback, especially if you can provide parses and math to back it up.
• There are some new vanity glyphs making an appearance in the Mists beta.
• We look at some ideas for giving your pandaren a roleplay-friendly name.
• The Fire Festival is in full swing, bringing with it a new helm.
• Rossi’s gained a new appreciation of Cataclysm‘s beauty and grandeur.
• This week, we’re transmogrifying some of Earth’s greatest superheroes.
• Rossi speculates on the future of cross-realm play, while Robin fears a darker side to the idea.

Class news and guides

• Lichborne discusses three more pressing death knight issues.
• Totem Talk says farewell to some restoration shaman mechanics.
• The Light And How To Swing It looks at things retribution is losing in Mists. We also take a look at some the essential elements of a successful tanking UI.
• Shifting Perspectives laments casting those boring and frustrating healing spells. We also take a look at the latest word on balance and feral druids in Mists.
• Encrypted Text looks at Ghostcrawler’s latest word on rogues.
• Arcane Brilliance looks for the best mage spec in Mists.
• Spiritual Guidance looks at the evolution of shadow priest.
• The Care And Feeding of Warriors looks back at five years of warriors.
• Blood Pact looks at affliction’s problems.

Dungeons, items, professions, PvP, and more

• Blood Sport examines the role of tanking in PvP.
• Anne isn’t going to miss Tol Barad.
• WoW Archivist looks back at five years of daily quests.
• Rossi comments on how different roles view raid encounters differently.
• Chase looks at five horrible raid encounters in Cataclysm.

Odds and ends

• Diablo III has been patched to version 1.0.3.
• WoW is getting the Google Maps treatment from some dedicated fans.
• The new Tomb of the Forgotten WoW TCG set is now available for purchase.
• WoW Monopoly can now be purchased at the Blizzard Store.
• 15 Minutes of Fame talks to some lovers who got married within Azeroth.
• You may remember Aubrey Plaza’s WoW commercial. Recently, Blizzard revealed another one that didn’t make the airwaves.
• Know Your Lore makes a case for evil in World of Warcraft and laments the lack of strong female characters.

Tags: downtime, last-week-in-wow, maintenance, realm-downtime, realm-maintenance, roundup, roundups, scheduled-downtime, scheduled-maintenance, server-downtime, server-maintenance, server-status, tuesday, tuesday-downtime, tuesday-maintenance, tuesday-morning, tuesday-morning-post

Filed under: Realm Status, News items